Stainless...what's the deal?

[Shotgun]

A lot of people don't like stainless for a woods knife but I'm not really sure why. If a stainless steel is done right, is it really inferior to a non-stainless? How so?

 

[Mentor]

I like the edge-holding and sharpening properties of O-1 and other carbon steels, and I like the fact that they develop a patina. It gives them a bit of character - sort of like a well-worn jacket or hat.

That being said, I have nothing against stainless, particularly when it comes to winter outings. Last year, my go-to belt knife in the fall and winter was a Delta 5 kit knife. I could pull it out, make a few cuts, and return it to its sheath covered in pine sap and snow, knowing that it wouldn't rust on me.

All the best,

- Mike

 

[Razorsharp1986]

I am not a specialist, but generally stainless is more fragile, which means the edge may chip, which totally reduces cutting ability; it also may break under hard use. Another huge disadvantage, is the fact that stainless blades are way harder to sharpen. In the outdoors you might not have the time or the tools to sharpen your knife.
I actually think these two are sufficient enough reasons already.
Needless to say, that Carbon blades behave completely the opposite.

 

[Bolt-action bultema]

In general, stainless steels are more brittle than carbon steels. As a result, the damage done to an edge of a stainless steel knife are chips (which may be small or large), while the damage done to a carbon steel is a roll. A rolled edge is much easier to repair in the field than a chipped edge. With a roll, the edge needs only be coaxed back into place with a hone or a strop. When the edge is chipped, however, one must actually remove material from the blade in order to re-sharpen the edge. It is hen much easier to keep a carbon steel sharp in the woods, because less effort is needed to do so.

I prefer carbon steel for my fixed blades, especially in the winter. With prolonged use in sub zero temperatures, I have seen many stainless blades snap. I have broken more than a few Big5 knives at winter camp, and even one eastwing 21" axe.

 

[1066vik]

largely because a lot of folks either remember what stainless steels were like 30 years ago or they were raised by folks who do -- and it wasn't pretty.
there are some excellent stainless steels out there today and with some steels the line between carbon and stainless is getting pretty hard to define.

 

[Bolt-action bultema]

1066vik-agreed, especially some of the scandvik stainlesses. Also, the laminated steel have gotten much better than in the past, so we can have the best of both worlds. I will continue to be leery of 440 in all its forms, as well as some of the other really hard stainlesses. HR55-58 is fine for me in an outdoor knife, I'll leave the 60's for kitchen knives.

 

[SouthernCross]

there are some excellent stainless steels out there today and with some steels the line between carbon and stainless is getting pretty hard to define.

+1 :thumbup:



Kind regards
Mick

 

[fujita yuji]

Toughness of ATS34 at Rc60 is equal to that of M2 at Rc64.
I cannot imagine using other than tool steels those developed for cutting purpose.

 

[TheGame]

I like the edge-holding and sharpening properties of O-1 and other carbon steels, and I like the fact that they develop a patina. It gives them a bit of character - sort of like a well-worn jacket or hat.

- Mike

I agree with this. That Patina is one of the main reason I like carbon steel.

 

[MRpink]

I like carbon steels for the reasons stated above, but I'm giving stainless a try, a custom Ban Tang knife in CPM 154. CPM 154 is suppose to be really good stuff, not like those cheap stainless stuff. Plus with Crucible out the picture, CPM 154 is going to be hard to come by. Reviews when the knife is ready.

 

[pitdog]

I worked for a time as a blacksmith at a coal mine and the tools we used were all good old carbon steel and were made when god was a lad ! If they can stand the test of time like that then that's what I want my knife made from.....bring on the patina !!!!

 

[ZombaiO]

I much prefer the carbon steel - it's tough,easy to sharpen and takes a nice patina :thumbup:

But I really like some stainless steels - like 420 HC (Buck Knives) and 12C27 (Mora) - they're very easy to sharpen and are excellent steels for knives.SAK steel is awsome too.I also really like 154 CM - at a small angle it seems to sharpen just like a carbon steel

 

[Ravaillac]

Stainless steels tend to be:
* not as tough as carbon
* more brittle (fai
* more difficult to sharpen
* more difficult to get very sharp


But those are only general tendancies and not absolute rules.

Well the fact that most stainless steels rely on chromium additions to produce steel passivation may explain similarities in behaviour among stainless steels but those are (again) only general tendancy, that get even more blurred by processes like powder metallurgy. (a few steel rely on nitrogen addition instead of chromium)

Many "super steels" (CPM3V, Infi...) also tend to be quite stain resistant thanks to various alloying additions not necessarly primary aimed at corrosion resistance but that improve it as a side effect.

That said, all things else equal, in pure logic it is probably easier to design a "better" if you free yourself from the constrain of having it stainless, although in some cases (like ZDP189) the best steel for a certain task (here extreme edge holding) might happen to be (almost) stainless.

 

[Toucan Oasis]

Surgeons don't seem to have a problem with it. I'd say their bone saws, drill bits and scalpels are adequately sharp.
Maybe someone should convert them

 

[Diomedes Industries]

I have a Koster in CPM 154 and 01. It is tough for me to tell the difference between the two when sharpening and edge holding. I like them both.

TF

 

[wildmike]

For me it just comes down to the quality of edge. No stainless that I have tried has taken or held as crisp of an edge as I can easily get on a carbon steel blade. Many also have exhibited a problem with micro chipping and edge chipping. I have seen blades made of several of the new super stainess steels break and shatter under use( though in extreme cold when the worst two cases occured).

However I am sure that done properly some makers do put out fantastic and functional blades with various stainless variants. I just don't care to waste anymore time or money finding one that is worth a damn. Especialy when I can pick up any one of my carbon steel blades and have no problems with it.

The one area where I think stainless is close to a neccesity is when one work on or around salt water. Otherwise there is no great advantage to a stainless blade.

 

[baldtaco-II]

largely because a lot of folks either remember what stainless steels were like 30 years ago or they were raised by folks who do -- and it wasn't pretty.
there are some excellent stainless steels out there today and with some steels the line between carbon and stainless is getting pretty hard to define.

Yup.

---

Rant added.

I'd also add that makers obviously want to buy cheap sell high, so if they can talk up a cheap steel with “what if” they often will. There's more profit in it. This usually when the horror tales of broken knives kick in.

Then there's that stainless is often harder to work with. If you've a stainless that is gummy to work you'll get through more belts making it more expensive for you to produce it. On the other hand a steel like 01 is notoriously forgiving for any that want to try the home brew heat treatment. It's loved 'cos it's hard for the amateur to louse up whilst also being a decent steel. For the little bloke aiming to pump out cheap users at low cost it makes sense to try to keep a buzz going round simple carbons with whatever you can claw at.

Appeal to nostalgia and working knives as art. Whether something is an art form is usually a contentious issue. I think many a bloke has sat apparently contemplating their navel while they try to define art, so I'll not add to that here. Suffice to say at the high end I believe knives are often art forms. In fact some of them are often more art form than they are knife. Dunno where I'd draw the line but for me using knives are not art they are tools, or at least if they are any artistry is merely coincidental. That is not the same for other people and there is a definite force at work that aims to usurp that. I wish I'd kept a screen grab of two makers I saw talking – essentially one was saying to the other “if we could foster the notion in the minds of the public that this is art we can charge more for it”. Bingo! Take a tool, add a sprinkle of pixie dust, and sell if for much more than what it is worth as a tool.

That gets interesting because although one might be friends/friendly with a knifemaker there is a conflict of interest. Ultimately, there is just buyer and seller the same as anything else. Both want to maximize what is in their interests. Easy to work cheap steels are definitely in the makers interests and that fuels the over abundance of simple carbons too. It has to be remembered that many, because they like knives, select to artificially prop up manufacturing processes that wouldn't be tolerated in other areas of the modern world. An appeal by the hobbist maker of “it took me yay many hours to make it from that though that's why I charge yay much for it” finds me with the response “tough shit”. I don't care to factor in how long other tools I have took to make, that's the makers problem, I just judge the finished article. Others see this differently and like to do makers a favor by recognizing their manufacturing plight in the modern world and paying over the top to support them. Thus we get a bit of old 1095 that factories have been using for cheap beater steel military knives for years getting sold off at many times its worth because it was made in a shed. Something else is used to ramp up the cost well in excess of it's worth than say when Ontario used it to make tool X, but it is the same stuff. In sum, there is market manipulation to sell by adding factors that have nothing to do with the properties of the material. And it works on people.

Then we have the might and magic lord of the rings and animism stuff. Some people seem to treat knives like they are living things. I guess that goes back to deities, superstition, swords and combat or even some farmer praying for a good harvest and so on. Historically we find cutting tools imbued with supernatural powers and treated as though they are living entities with personalities. Simple carbon steels make that easier because they readily corrode and that looks like age and character to the rose tinted glasses. By contrast throw in a Spydie X Salt. It's dead. Stone cold sober and uniform with its siblings. Whilst remarkable it may be there is little to distinguish one from the next one, and that makes it hard to use as a prop if you buy into the living knife connection thing. If you want to believe your knife has a soul it's gonna be a lot harder with a Spydie X salt than something all gnarly grandpappy made from and old horse shoe. For some, this knife as a living entity certainly seems to take priority over real world performance characteristics.

I don't suspect that is going to change any time soon either. One may already wonder at some of this by looking at some of the so called super steels in comparison with say 1095 and wondering at the gulf between the two. One may already think that the performance difference is so great one of them should have already fallen off the map save for a few hobbyists playing about for their own amusement or knives that are principally art pieces. And if we were to project to the new steels we may have in 300yrs time and everything they may be capable of whether 1095 will have finally gone the way of the dodo then. I suspect not. I think there will still be people clinging to it because of fact that despite superficial attempts to retard corrosion none of them really work and the knife will degrade in some unique pattern whether you call that rust or patina it doesn't matter. And some people like that degradation because it makes the knife unique to them. It's like sewing their name tag in it. We see the same in other areas too. Someone will take a hideous wood stain to a beautifully figured wood handle in a way that would make an antiques dealer or professional woodworker cringe, just to make it personal. Similarly, it is well known that one should be suspicious when one sees loads of crap written on a blade or wood that has crude blow torch scorchings on it or something. It's a massive clue yelling misdirection. The piece probably uses crap wood and the crude burnt bits are supposed to draw your attention away from that. All these dodges and swerves are concealment and misdirection and the savvy buyer knows that. They should be kinds of things that yell warning “these go-faster stripes and stickers, suspiciously incongruous markings and so on are deliberately engineered to obscure something this knife isn't”. Damn, I've got a heuristic that says reject such pieces with the same passion I'd reject I'd have rejected a knife on the Bay marked up as “£L00K£”. Yet even though we know such things make knives look cheap and tacky we still see people wanting to do that to their knives. It is the desperate attempt to get their name tag sewn inside and make them personal. I half expect to find a group of people cooing round the half melted handle of an X Salt one day because there was nothing Bloggs could think of to do to personalize it.

In sum, I believe simple carbons still have their place as selected on merit. Yet I also believe those merits are relative and shrinking all the time. That is not in the interest of makers that use them so we hear a lot of mumbles about “what if” and so on. Further, aside from being a tool for real world use some people want them as a canvas to paint a picture that offers a comfortable emotional appeal that has nothing to do with knowing, knowledge, or intellect. One simply can't argue emotional appeal with someone that wants to bring that baggage to the equation, for them it is a very real thing. They'll still be clinging to their emotional feel good props long after the rest of us have adopted light sabers. Test the idea. Take a bunch of people that apparently make efforts to oil their carbon knives and keep them pristine. Ask them “in principal, if you could exchange that knife for one that was indistinguishable from it in every respect save for that it would remain in an as NIB condition for ever would you take it?”. I bet quite a few wouldn't, despite oiling and waxing their knives and all that malarkey. There is something that these people are buying when they buy knives that has bugger all to do with knives or the purpose of knives at all.

2Cents

 

[Gossman Knives]

Alot depends on which stainless steel. Some, not all factory made knives use stainless of which is low grade (cheap) easy to blank out and machine. High grade stainless gets a bad rap because of this. People consider all stainless steels are created equal, no so. Take 440C, 154CM, CPM 154, VG-10, sandvik stainless, heat treated and tempered properly and you have a blade that will handle the work of an outdoor blade.
Scott

 

[hushnel]

They'll still be clinging to their emotional feel good props long after the rest of us have adopted light sabers. Test the idea. Take a bunch of people that apparently make efforts to oil their carbon knives and keep them pristine. Ask them “in principal, if you could exchange that knife for one that was indistinguishable from it in every respect save for that it would remain in an as NIB condition for ever would you take it?”. I bet quite a few wouldn't, despite oiling and waxing their knives and all that malarkey. There is something that these people are buying when they buy knives that has bugger all to do with knives or the purpose of knives at all.

Yep, I'd be one of them, I'm stuck in the past, never used a stainless steel drill bit that was worth a damn, so of course I unrealistically draw the conclusion that it ain't a tool steel. There is no doubt that some of us are drawn to more of a symbiotic relationship with our tools, a tool that needs us to take care of it will reward us in it being a better tool than it's exact copy owned by somebody that doesn't take care of it. In this we can look at the knife and tell much about the owner.

An example of this would be blued guns, you don't have to take it apart if all is well with the external finish because the shape it's in will clue you in to what is going on inside.

Along these lines I'll add that I prefer a wrist watch that needs to be wound each day, I like mechanical clocks. They work until they are broken they rely on us to be so, if we do our job they will exceed the usefulness of a battery powered watch, in which you give up your control of it's function to a battery, that will eventually fail and not be replaceable.

I do own some SS knives, they are fine knives but still I like my carbon steel best. As for the light saber I'll keep my 1911 thank you.

 

[VTguy]

:thumbup: Baldtaco-II I agree completely (not going to quote all that)
I have owned several different stainless and nonstainless (all steel is carbon steel that what makes iron into steel) blades over the years. I see no difference in how well I can sharpen them and with what ease, Diamond cuts either equally well with the same ease provided you compare they are at the same Rc. (Sharpening either at high Rc will take a little longer then either at low Rc) I think if you can't get stainless as sharp as nonstainless then your sharpening skill may need a little work
I like stainless for the ease of maintenance, patina doesn't do much for me...I just don't care for corrosion on my knives.
I also agree much of the bias against stainless steels has to do with remembering when the quality of stainless steel was much worse for blade steel just as 1066vik suggested
the way I see it good steel with a good heat treatment is just that...good
bad steel or even good steel with a bad heat treatment is never going to perform
Niether can be judged as such solely on whether it is stainless of nonstainless
just my opinion